AC Grayling

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Grayling as a speaker at the Global Atheist Convention in March 2010

AC Grayling , CBE , FRSA ( Anthony Clifford Grayling ; born April 3, 1949 ) is a British philosopher and writer. He is a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College of the University of London and an unscheduled member of the University of Oxford belonging to St Anne's College . He has a Masters and PhD in Philosophy from Oxford University and is a member of the Royal Society for Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts . He advocates the separation of religion and state and atheism . In 2010, Grayling founded the New College of the Humanities , due to begin teaching in September 2012.

Life and Course of Education

Grayling was born in the Zambian city ​​of Luanshya and spent his formative youth in the East African community of the British abroad. He had his first encounter with philosophical literature at the age of twelve, when he read an English translation of Plato's dialogue Charmides . At fourteen he read the Biographical History of Philosophy (1846) by George Henry Lewes (1817–1878). This work significantly strengthened his desire to study philosophy. Grayling later commented on this book, "It brought order to my previously arbitrary reading and established my calling."

After returning to England as a teenager, Grayling studied at the University of Sussex and Magdalen College , Oxford, where he obtained his PhD in 1981 , while at the same time studying as an external student for an undergraduate degree from the University of London . The topic of his doctoral thesis was skepticism and transcendental arguments . She was mentored by the philosophers Peter Strawson and AJ Ayer . Grayling was a professor of philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford, before taking up a position at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he lectured on philosophy and later became a philosophy professor. Grayling is also a regular contributor to Prospect magazine .

Academic interests

Grayling is primarily concerned with epistemology , metaphysics and philosophical logic . He combines these issues to determine the relationship between mind and the world, and in doing so, puts the notions of skepticism to the test. He has explained his arguments in a number of publications, including The Refutation of Skepticism (1985), Berkeley: The Central Arguments (1986), Wittgenstein (1988, 1999 also in German), Russell (1996) and Truth, Meaning and Realism ( 2007). Grayling uses philosophical logic to counter the arguments of skepticism, examining traditional notions of the realism debate and developing related views of truth and meaning . He described his ideas in the final chapters of An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (1982; third edition 1998) and developed them further in a number of writings, including Epistemology and Realism (1991-2) and Independence and Transcendence: The Independence Thesis and Realism ( 1998). In these publications, he puts forward the idea that we should think of realism as a primarily epistemological - rather than a metaphysical or semantic - idea of ​​the relationship between mind and world.

Grayling has written in many places on contemporary topics such as war crimes , drug legalization , euthanasia , secularism, and human rights . In keeping with his belief that philosophers should intervene in public debates, he applies a philosophical view of everyday issues as a commentator on radio and television. Between 1999 and 2002 he wrote a weekly column in The Guardian called The Last Word . In these contributions, which also became the basis for a number of generally understandable books (beginning in 2001 with The Meaning of Things ), Grayling made the foundations of philosophy accessible to laypeople. He regularly contributes to the comments page Comment is free from Guardian Unlimited , the online service of The Guardian , and writes for four years a monthly column for The Dubliner , a small city magazine.

In June 2011, Grayling's founding of a private business college with a purely humanities orientation, New College of the Humanities , attracted major media attention in London. The academic degrees to be obtained there, however, only correspond to those of the University of London , which, given the fees of £ 18,000 per year, caused cost-benefit critics on the scene. When Grayling gave a lecture in a London bookstore, there was even a smoke bomb incident because of his alleged departure from the public education system. Other commentators emphasized that the storm of critics over the alleged establishment of the US commercial higher education system was exaggerated, given the blatant government neglect of the humanities in the country.

Grayling takes an active part in the public debate about ways out of the climate crisis . He is a co-signer of an open letter published in December 2018, in which politicians are accused of having failed in addressing the crisis and are called on to join movements like Extinction Rebellion and to refrain from consumption .

Offices and memberships

Works (selection)

Monographs
Essays
Biographies
editor

Web links

Commons : Anthony Clifford Grayling  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Academics launch £ 18,000 college in London. In: BBC News . June 5, 2011, accessed June 9, 2011 .
  2. ↑ On Becoming A Philosopher: AC Grayling . acgrayling.com. Retrieved May 18, 2011: "It superinduced order on the random reading that had preceded it, and settled my vocation."
  3. ↑ The Times, June 5, 2011: Is Grayling's New College a New Oxbridge? ( Memento from June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ New Statesman of June 7, 2011: Grayling's Folly is falling down
  5. ^ Professor AC Grayling talk: Flare set off by protesters. In: BBC News , June 7, 2011 (English).
  6. ^ Sarah Churchwell : Give AC Grayling's new college a chance. In: The Guardian , June 7, 2011 (English).
  7. ↑ Act now to prevent an environmental catastrophe. The Guardian, December 9, 2018, accessed January 22, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Stuart Kelly: Friendship by AC Grayling - review. In: The Guardian , October 18, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Grayling, AC
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grayling, Anthony Clifford
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1949